Knock. Knock knock.

"Zaran it's time!"

Zaran opened his yes as he heard his sister shouting at the door. "Okay i'm coming!", he replied excitedly. He took his crutches and went towards the living room. Two pods were installed there with and on the side golden letters proudly said 'Myth online'. Today the servers of the newest vrmmo would finally open!

His sister, Sylphie, helped him in the pod. "Let's meet each other in Virul okay?"

Zaran nodded. "Sure sis, just don't choose a lame race okay?"

"puh!! you little!" Sylphie exclaimed as she stuck out her tongue. "We'll see whose lame!" Sylphie quickly entered her own pod.

"Finally" Zaran thought. "I hope this vrmmo delivers... This life has been worthless. Reincarnated for like the 5000th time, almost enough karma to be reborn as an immortal and... I get a crippled body." That's right, Zaran is a reincarnator. One of the lucky people to have earned enough karmic merrit to be reborn again and keep his memories! Over countless lifetimes he has been gradually earning more merrit and his lives kept getting better, until now. He was even able to confirm that he almost had enough merrit to become an immortal but he never would've thought that his next life would be a total disaster.

"At least games have been somewhat interesting but besides that..." Zaran sighed as he thought back about his life. He was 18 now and this life had only been filled with hardships with very little joyeous moments. With crippled legs there had been very little ways for him to obtain more karmic merrit. Most people would try to help him instead of the other way around. All he felt he could do was waste this lifetime without earning anything out of it. The only real way for him to obtain more karmic merrit in this life would be to become insanely rich and help change the lives of all the poor people but...

He had never been born in a world so advanced and his previous lifetimes mostly were from a pre-technologic world he could hardly grasp whatever was going on. If this was an usual reincarnation he could apply some of his knowledge from one of his previous lifetimes to get rich to gain merrit but that was not the case this time.

"Still, if you really can make your own skills in Myth online... i at least could practice my arts." Zaran smiled at this thought and started his connection to the server. He felt his conciousness slipping away for a moment and when he regained it, his surroundings were black and in front of him was the countdown to the servers opening time. There still was half an hour left before the servers would open and character creation was possible.

A message popped up.

"The servers are unavailable. Would you like to learn more about myth online in the meantime?"

Zaran quickly pressed "yes". Besides the names, locations and surroundings of a few beginner villages, the ability to create skills and a sneak-peek at a few of the races not much information was known about Myth online.

His field of view immediatly changed and Zaran was now in a room with a lot of crystals. Under each crystal there were golden letters with keywords. He looked for the keyword "races" and instinctively touched the crystal.

The wall and crystals before him dissapeared and a large number of people replaced them. A female voice greeted him. "The races available in Myth Online are classified in four types. These four types are Humanoid, beastmen, elemental and hidden races." As she spoke examples of the races flashed by. "Humanoid races consist of races with human features, like elves, dwarves, giants et cetera. Beastmen consist of all races with features of animals, in example we have the tigermen and wolfmen. The elemental races consist out of elements that have gained sentience, like golems and firelings. Lastly the hidden races are not available to start with but can be obtained through the game, as example we have werewolves and vampires. Obtaining them also depends on your starting race. For example it is impossible to become a vampire as an elemental or beastman."

"Of which races would you like to know more? Or do you wish to return?" the female voice said.

Zaran thought for a moment. Most of the hidden races weren't visible as they flashed by in the introduction so Zaran replied "Humanoid races.". Elementals and beastmen, while interesting, weren't really his thing so this was the only option left.

The female voice was heard once again. "You are now free to wander around and inspect the various humanoid races." As the voice said this all the non-humanoid races dissapeared, leaving him with around 20 races left. He skipped the giants, dwarves, elves, valkyrie, sirens, mermaids, harpies and centauri until he arrived at a human-looking species, as he approached closer the race reformed to show his build and face. The face looked a lot sharper than his current face, the forehead was about half as big as that of a human, the nose bridge was a lot broader and it had sharp teeth. The fingers were longer and were growing inwards, making the hands look similar to claws. It also had a slightly lowered stance, with the knees bent a little, making their movement seem more natural. The whole of it gave a feeling of a savage and brutal species. He noticed the name was Zuno. "Zuno, additional information" Zaran said.

"The Zuno are an ancient species who don't often traverse the borders of their country and they love to train and fight. Through there scarce use of precious resources, the humans have tried many times to conquer the lands they lived on but were met with total defeat each time. The last war dates a hundred fifty years ago. the humans thought this war would be different since their recent development of matchlock guns, this development made the humans overconfident in their abilities and they were met yet again with total defeat. In previous wars the Zuno had never retaliated but this time they decided to ally themselves with the bestial kingdoms and take a share of the human territory. This land has since become the free kingdom of Liberia, where every race works hand in hand. After the war, the shy Zuno spread across the continent. Their racial strength lie in the ability to posses all types of energy resources. Be it chakra, mana, ki et cetera. As long as they can train in it they can possess it. The racial weakness lies in their inability to understand feelings.". A message popped up with the numbers for racial traits and disadvantages. Training speed 300% usual rate. skillpoints - 50%. Intimacy - 50%.

"So basically a strong race but has a harder time building intimicy with NPC's which reduces their ability to receive quests to some extent?" Zaran asked. "Yes, but ofcourse there are ways to reduce this penalty or completely lose it altogether. How you do this you have to figure out yourself. At the same time if you don't train you will be weaker as people of the same level."

Zaran went over the information he just acquired. The Zuno race would be stronger if you'd be good at training your body, but you wouldn't be able to receive quests easily, at least at the start until you figure out to compensate for the racial penalty. He nodded as he understood this and looked at the other races.

After looking at the humans and other extremely human-like races he concluded that the zuno race fitted him the best.

"Return to menu, Skill creation information." Zaran loudly said.

Zaran's field of view changed and he was now in a dojo with various martial artist practicing a large variety of martial arts. The female voice resounded in his mind yet again. "Like in the real world skills can be formed over time. As your understanding of your body and your powers grows you might even be able to create divine-tier level skills. However it all begins with understanding, in example if you don't even know how to swing a sword and only rely on the system, a skill will never be created. Some skills also cannot be create for they already exist, judo and karate skills are already learnable skills, these skills you can simply unlock. Unlocking an already-known skill in the real world or creating a basic one relies on you to perfect the movement of the action. Later on you can add mana or ki to your skill to create additional effects or create a new skill alltogether."

Most of the martial artist vanished from his field of view and only a knight wielding a sword and shield was left. "This is an example of a creation of a skill with additional effects." The knight used the skill slash first. Then he used slash while using ki to increase the speed of the slash and mana to exert a line of water from the sword. The line of water went forward at high speed and cleanly cut a metal dummy in 2. "While adding ki to his arm for speed and mana to create the water line, the high-level skill 'fast water slash' is born." said the female voice.

"What a lame name..." Zaran muttered, but then asked "Can techniques for increasing ki and the likes be learned and how about production techniques?"

"These can both be learned as long as the system recognizes them."

A short answer, but he learned what he needed to know through it.

"Return menu.".

The crystal chamber returned before him and Zaran looked around to see if there was any more info he really wanted to know before creating his character. He looked up some more basic info and waited for the countdown clock to reach 0.

As the servers finally opened he heard the female voice again "The servers have opened. Character creation will now automatically begin."

"First choose your race"

"Zuno."

The character the game created for him earlier while viewing the races appeared again. "Do you wish to edit the appearances?"

"Yes."

"Imagine the appearance you want your character to have."

Zaran imagined the appearance of one of his most precious lifetimes. As he did so the character changed and a slightly bigger than average man replaced it, with long black hair tied in a ponytail. The Zuno characteristics were kept but it had a more elegant and refined face and his amber eyes had a golden sheen to them. Through his clothes you could see his well-defined muscles. Even though he had a beautiful face at the same time it gave off an aura of being extremely fierce.

"Is this the appearance you want?"

"Yes."

"Choose your starting city."

"Virul."

"Choose your starting gear"

"longsword and leather set"

The female voice resounded one last time. "Please choose your name and surname to finalize character creation."

"Name Zaran, surname Karaz". He didn't have to think this through. It's the same name he has been using in every game and the name he had gotten in every reincarnation. And thus Zaran Karaz was born again...